The Saudi-backed Yemeni army took control of the town of al-Bareh, west of Taiz, earlier this week. The fall of this town is less important than what comes next, as the army draws ever closer to the key port city of Hodeidah.

Hodeidah is the lone seaport under the control of the Shi’ite Houthi movement, and by extension is the only port through which humanitarian aid can flow for the entire northern half of the country. A vital humanitarian location, which to pro-Saudi forces is a vital military target.

Successfully conquering Hodeidah would, after all, mean the Houthi territory, including the capital city and many millions of people, would have no access to food or medical aid. This would be an opportunity for the Saudi invading force to really crack down on them.

They envision it forcing a surrender, but it may also could bring millions of malnourished people into outright starvation.

Webmaster's Commentary:

"Yemeni Deaths by Starvation! Cholera!! Diptheria!! The mutilation and killings, through bombing raids, of infants, toddlers, women, and non-combatants, including the medically fragile elderly! WE JUST LOVE IT HERE IN RIYADH!!" - official spokesman for the B.O.Y., AKA the Butcher of Yemen, AKA Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

Why did the Cockatoo-in-Chief renege on the Iran deal deeply prized by Russia, China, France, Germany, England, and the European Union? Why did he deliberately damage relations with Europe and cost American workers many thousands of jobs at Boeing among others? Why do all of this to hurt a country that poses no danger to the United States?

Israel.Israel, Israel. Israel. Israel.
Always Israel.

But while “the Jews” didn’t sink the Iran deal, a comparatively small number of Israel-firsters did. These are the Neocons, warlike and heavily Jewish, plus the Jewish lobby AIPAC plus a few Jewish billionaires. Collectively they determine American foreign policy, and not for the benefit of America........

Hawaii tourism officials are hoping Kilauea's eruption won't deter travelers from visiting the state's largest island -- even as geologists warn the volcano could soon shoot large boulders out of its summit. Travel industry executives note that most of the Big Island is free of eruption threats from Kilauea, which began spewing lava and gas into a residential neighborhood earlier this month.

The Big Island is "immense" and there are large parts that are unaffected by the volcano, said George Szigeti, CEO of the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

Europeans are angry over the latest US-imposed set of sanctions harming EU interests in the wake of Donald Trump quitting the Iran nuclear deal. The EU needs to decide whether to finally stand up for itself, analysts told RT.

Aside from imperiling a landmark international accord and endangering regional and global security, the US pull-out from the 2015 agreement with Iran will have crushing economic consequences for Europe. French, German and UK firms stand to lose billions of euros in investments and trade if they are forced to comply with the sanctions that will be re-imposed and expanded now that the US is no longer a signatory of the nuclear deal.

Now, facing the ruinous economic and political fallout from Washington’s unwillingness to honor its agreements, Europe has signaled that it may choose to pursue its own interests – as opposed to obediently swallowing what the US dictates.

A MONTH AFTER dozens of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents surrounded a meatpacking plant in Morristown, Tennessee, and detained 97 men and women who worked there, the tight-knit rural community is still reeling, but the initial shock has seeped into a quiet pain, as families adjust to lives without work and their loved ones.

As those shipped to immigration detention facilities across the country started appearing before judges for bond hearings this month, some families were reunited, though still facing deportation proceedings, while others braced for long separations. As of Thursday, 20 of those arrested on April 5 were released — but many more remained in detention. “Tragedy continues to unfold,” said Stephanie Teatro, co-executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. “Some families are getting really terrible news.”

Webmaster's Commentary:

As a compassionate human being, I am sorry for these people, but that being said, they needed, very clearly, to understand that this imprisonment, and forced repatriation, could well be the result of their illegal immigration to this country.

If they absolutely did not, in the immortal words of the commedian Ron White, "You can't fix stupid."

Unless and until this lesson gets learned, there will be more of these activities to deport people who have come here illegally.

This country, and various of its states, are being bankrupted through unfunded mandates for the support of illegal aliens, which we can no longer tolerate.

At this part of the 21st century, this is not the country about which Emma Lazarus wrote, "Give me your tired, your poor... your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." The entire nature of work is changing, from mechanical, computer-controlled burger flippers, to entire factories running primarily under computer control.

Unless people have the skills to compete here, they are going to, generally, be an incredible financial burden, and strain, on the country's economic system.

US State Department spokeswoman appeared to dismiss an interpretation of top diplomat Michael Pompeo's promise of a brighter future for North Korea that allegedly involved US economic assistance.

"Misleading headline," State Department’s Heather Nauert tweeted. "If DPRK denuclearizes, they could have a brighter future one day, which could include international trade, investment and visitors from around the world," she wrote, using an abbreviation for North Korea.

Pompeo said earlier at a meeting with his South Korean counterpart that Washington was ready to help North Korea "achieve prosperity" if it gave up nuclear weapons. The Fox News channel published a report saying the North would receive US economic help.

In 2016 I reported on the US Department of Defense (DoD) admitting they “lost” $6.5 trillion of our taxes; ~$65,000 per average US household. In 2017 I updated upon Catherine Austin Fitts’ reporting, with further work by Michigan State University Economics Professor Mark Skidmore and Fitts leading work to examine available DoD and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) reports that total $21 trillion “missing” from just those two areas of government from 1998 to 2015 (here, here, here), that equals ~$200,000 looted from every American household.

The benefits of monetary reform and public banking are ~$1,000,000 per US household in contrast with Americans being told by “leaders” we owe over $20,000,000,000,000 (20 trillion dollars) because the US model is the “best system in the world.”

The above links have abundant video and documentation for this peer-reviewed and published data.
Three videos ‘right on the money’

The record total federal taxes collected during this period also included a record $1,050,601,000,000 in individual income taxes—marking the earliest in any fiscal year that individual income taxes have topped $1 trillion. -- But even while the Treasury was collecting its record $2,007,451,000,000 in total taxes from October through April, it was spending $2,392,896,000,000—thus, accumulating a deficit of $385,444,000,000.

US billionaire George Soros and Wall Street tycoons have reportedly warmed up towards bitcoin. Speaking to Sputnik, CNTV Asia-Pacific commentator Tom McGregor explained the digital currency's hidden flaws and shed light on what could be behind the growing interest in virtual coins.

When used for ill-gotten gains bitcoin poses a grave threat to national currencies, says Tom McGregor, a Beijing-based political analyst and Asia-Pacific commentator for China's national TV broadcaster CNTV, adding that it is no coincidence that George Soros, the man who "broke the Bank of England," has recently turned to the cryptocurrency.

"It's like a pyramid scheme, where you can con so many people to pour their cash into bitcoin and national currencies can be depleted, especially from poor countries that face the biggest dangers from bitcoin," the analyst opined.

Russia has opened a criminal inquiry into confessions by Alexander Vinnik, a Russian national held in a Greek jail at a US request related to money-laundering charges, a source privy to the matter told Sputnik.

"Vinnik wrote several confession letters to Russian law enforcement agencies, pleading guilty to crimes related to financial technologies. The Russian Interior Ministry’s investigative department has opened a criminal probe into several unknowns," the source familiar with the matter said.

One major argument against the US withdrawing from the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran was the impact it would have on US relations with the other parties to the deal, including European allies. This appears indeed to be the case, as Europe scrambles to strike back against the US measures.

Europe's heavyweight economies took steps Friday to safeguard their commercial and political interests in Iran, seeking to keep the nuclear deal with Tehran alive after Washington pulled out and said sanctions would follow.

Germany, France have significant trade links with Iran and remain committed to the nuclear agreement, as does Britain, and all three countries' foreign ministers plan to meet on Tuesday to discuss it.

That is part of a flurry of diplomatic activity lined up following Tuesday's unilateral withdrawal from what U.S. President Donald Trump called "a horrible, one-sided deal", a move accompanied by the threat of penalties against any foreign firms doing business in Iran.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said possibilities to save the deal without Washington needed to be discussed with Tehran, while France's Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said EU states would propose sanctions-blocking measures to the European Commission.

The currency of the world’s biggest energy exporter is finally doing what it’s supposed to be doing: rallying with the price of oil.

The ruble was the biggest gainer in the world on Thursday as it played catch-up with Brent crude’s surge above $77 a barrel following a national holiday.>>>

(*That was Trump , killing "The Barack H. Obama Oil Glut" . Thank You President Trump ! Fuel is back up to $3.00+gal , up here . Sure it sucks for me , but , a look at the bright side shows it sucks for everybody else . after that , I don't try to claim I comprehend your 'genius' , Sir .)

If we speak of liberalism, or neoliberalism, in today's society, it's usually in a negative sense. And that is remarkable, because liberalism was originally intended to 'liberalize' the citizen, that is, to free him from the ruling elite. How then did modern liberalism become a new instrument of oppression? And why is it time to take a new look at this prevailing system?..

One of America’s founding myth is that of the “self-made man”: the idea that, with enough work & dedication, anybody can climb the social ladder and become wealthy. Or at least better off than his or her parents.

Well, that’s complete bullshit.

Data shows that the most important drivers of one’s living standard are determined at birth: most of the people who are poor are so because they made the mistake of being born to the wrong parents.

“No matter what your educational background is, where you start has become increasingly important for where you end”

- Michael D. Carr, economist at the University of Massachusetts

Now the goal of this article is not to languish and complain. By providing a fact-based analysis of the unfairness of our society, I aim to foster empathy and gratitude in the reader’s mind. Acknowledging the luck you have is the starting point towards greater generosity and happiness.

One day after President Trump scrapped US involvement in the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran, the White House says new sanctions against Iran’s civilian nuclear program will be coming very soon.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee-Sanders promised “enormous sanctions on them,” saying that the intention is all former sanctions are to be back in place, and that the administration will add new ones on top of that as soon as next week.

That’s the plan, at least. In reality, the pre-deal sanctions were heavily negotiated internationally, and there is no sign that anyone else will be going along with the US push this time. Indeed, there is every reason to believe the European Union will block US sanctions from being enforced, and may threaten retaliatory sanctions against the US in the process.

The US Treasury has blacklisted six individuals reportedly associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and three related business entities, just days after the US withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal.

The list of sanctioned individuals was updated Thursday with the names of Meghdad Amini, Mohammad Hasan Khodai, Said Najafpur, Masud Nikbakht, Foad Salehi and Mohammadreza Khedmati Valadzaghard, said by the government to be linked to “Quds Force” of the IRGC.

The Quds Force is commanded by Major General Qassem Soleimani, and has been designated by the US as a supporter of terrorism since 2007.

Trump has really done it now. He has banned the Scots #1 soft drink from his Scottish resort and golf course. Boy is he in big trouble now!
Where is William Wallace when you need him. Trump can kill them,attack their country,sanction them,but the Scots will never give up their Irn Bru!

It is the best-selling soft drink in Scotland, often referred to as the country's "other national drink," so it should perhaps come as no surprise that the banning of Irn-Bru from a luxury golf resort owned by Donald Trump has caused many Scots to see, erm, orange.

US President Donald Trump’s pullout from the Iran nuclear deal has put Europe under pressure to salvage the 2015 multilateral agreement. But does the EU have what it takes to stand up to US sanctions?

The day after Trump announced his long-dreaded decision to withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, EU members were hammering out measures to try to protect European firms doing business in Iran from US sanctions.

The JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) – as the Iran deal is formally known – was signed between Iran, the US, Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany and the EU.

But Trump’s pullout has left international companies doing business in Iran vulnerable to the extraterritoriality of US law, which enables Washington to punish foreign companies operating in Iran if they have business dealings with the US or use dollar transactions.

Iran’s gold demand will probably be “strong” for the next few months and then gradually decline as U.S. sanctions start to take effect, according to the researcher who covers the country for Metals Focus Ltd.

After a previous set of sanctions was imposed on Iran in 2012, it took two years for the country’s gold demand to start falling, according to data from the World Gold Council. It sank to only 45.1 tons by 2016, the lowest in at least six years and 65 percent lower than in 2013, according to gold council data. It rose to 64.5 tons last year.

“What’s going to happen initially, people will try to convert whatever they have into dollars or gold or whatever is of value that’s not going to depreciate,” Cagdas Kucukemiroglu, an analyst at London-based Metals Focus, said Wednesday by phone. “Then next year the demand will gradually start to go down but it’s not going to be drastic. The base is already very low.”

Tesla bank creditors have forced the Company to add its Fremont manufacturing factory to the pool of assets which secure Tesla’s $1.8 billion credit facility. The cover story is that the banks “suggested” that Tesla add the additional collateral to support the asset base underlying the bank. However, that’s unmitigated propaganda.

Banks have access to the inside books at companies to which they lend. In this regard, bank creditors have valuable insight to the actual cash flows in and out of a borrower. Anyone who has dabbled professionally in the world of credit, especially junk credit, will recognize this as the beginning of the end for Tesla. This is a move by the bank lenders to grab title to Tesla’s most valuable assets. Soon there will be a scramble to tie anything not already pledged.

A new round of US sanctions against Tehran are likely to seriously damage Belgian companies, according to a Wallonia region investment agency.

After the nuclear deal with Iran was reached, many Walloon companies started resuming business ties with the country.

"An average of about 30 companies were present on our joint missions to Iran,”said General Administrator of Wallonia Export-Investment Agency (Awex), Pascale Delcomminette, as quoted by the Brussels Times.